Why Are You You? is a feature documentary that explores the history of the YRUU community where adolescents discovered their true selves and were empowered to incite positive change in the world. Decades after the program's inception, those former members reflect on how being a part of the program shaped them and informed their lives. YRUU, established in 1983, grew out of the Unitarian Universalists’ rich tradition of religious youth education. It was disbanded in 2008.

The title of the film, Why Are You You?, takes the YRUU acronym literally to dig into universal questions: What makes us who we are? What events, experiences, people and outside (and inside) forces shape us into being? Although YRUU has not existed for over thirteen years, the lessons the youth—and adults—learned remain relevant and important today.

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Dear friends,

Everyone knows how fraught the teenage years are with normal bouts of insecurity and loneliness as our bodies change and we straddle the world between childhood and adulthood. Adolescents struggle with feelings of belonging, adrift until they find their people. Sometimes that takes a lifetime.

Finding a “community with intention” was not on my radar as a 13-year-old growing up in Duxbury, Massachusetts. Fitting in at school felt hard. I often found myself suppressing who I was: a dancer with long frizzy hair who followed the rules and wanted to be in places of acceptance.

But then I bridged (came of age) into the Young Religious Unitarian Universalists (YRUU) program, an internationally acclaimed youth empowerment movement born from the Unitarian Universalist church.

My name is Lindsay LaPointe. I am still a dancer, and now a mother, wife, filmmaker, and creative with her own business—and I would not be who I am today if it weren’t for YRUU. It was in this program I learned how to be an effective administrator when I took the role as registrar for a conference called Kid Con. It was also at this conference that I taught a dance workshop where I found my love for teaching. I can say similar experiences happened to my good friend, Dawn Mackechnie.

Now also a mother, wife, and graphic designer, Dawn now the director of children and youth ministry for the Unitarian Church of Barnstable, MA . A job I could see her having at the age of 16 when we were both participants of YRUU. She was always a leader who listened and guided her peers to better places.

Recently, we mused, “What was the magic in our YRUU experience that we did not find anywhere else? What made this youth program, which ignited us with values of social and racial justice, so different from other religious youth programs and so impactful in our lives?” We surveyed other YRUU members on Facebook and through social media about their experiences: Was it just as transformative or impactful for them so many years later? Upwards of 300 people have responded.

One response summed up what we kept hearing:

Transformative. Life-saving. I clung to my “Con” and YRUU experiences like a life raft. They gave me a tiny window into what my future could be, outside of my small town. Our worship services were exercises in creativity, in expressing what mattered to our angst, feeling-filled teen hearts. The adults in the room acted like it all mattered, and that made all the difference.

~YRUU Youth Participant, Kaitlyn Duling

We knew we had to make a documentary about this extraordinary program, which operated within the Unitarian Universalists Association from 1983 to 2008. Trained mentors worked alongside teens, providing a safe place for them to explore self-expression, have a voice and gain agency in the world through honing leadership skills. It gave us a place to belong when we didn’t even know what we needed.

Why Are You You?—our feature documentary—reveals where the real power lies long after the disbandment of the Young Religious Unitarian Universalists.

Our purpose in making Why Are You You? is not only to show how YRUU transformed and saved lives, but how teen empowerment is nothing to mess with: When we find a sense of belonging at the most tender times in our lives, we thrive as adults. We learn how to lead with our voices.

We are honored to have received funding from The New York State Convention of Universalists and The Unitarian Universalist Funding Program (UUFP).

My filmmaking background comes through the lens of dance. I am looking to see how I can use my knowledge of creating “dances for the camera” using the youth of today as reenactors to allow the audience to experience these memories in a visual way. These moments will be inserted into the documentary as interludes from the audio storytelling.

While Dawn and I bring our passion and personal experience in the YRUU program to the film, another executive producer, Naomi Kooker, will help shape our YRUU stories into a universal narrative—one of belonging. An award-winning journalist, Naomi and I have worked closely together on Making Mill Town, a documentary that earned an award for editing from the Utah Dance Film Festival and a Goal Award from the Spotlight Documentary Film Awards. As an outsider to the Unitarian Universalist experience, yet a PK (preacher’s kid in the Methodist denomination), Naomi is uniquely qualified to bring balance to and foster the Why Are You You? storyline for universal emotional appeal.

Though youth empowerment still excels in the Unitarian Universalists church, the YRUU years have something to teach us. For adults, the challenge is to trust and allow our youth to lead, if we can only relinquish the desire to control and “know it all”. Then we get the best of both worlds.

Thank you for your support with this project.

~Lindsay Caddle LaPointe
Director, Executive Producer and Editor

WHY ARE YOU YOU?

When we find a sense of belonging at the most tender times in our lives, we thrive as adults.